Gerhard Richter - one of the giants of post-war German art - is elusive, enigmatic and seemingly impossible to pin down. The first retrospective exhibition of his work in Australia is a brilliant and challenging event.

The packers' favourite has gained prominence and there are few portraits of politicians in this year's popular art prize. The stand out work is a deceptively innocent re-appropriation of Aboriginal kitsch.

Four Seasons of the Canadian Flag, painted by Maxwell Newhouse for John Burge.
(Maxwell Newhouse)July 17, 2017

Today, the idea of a male artist making a major series of paintings about schoolgirls, or any sort of children, sits uncomfortably with the public. But these were memorable and original works when painted in the 1950s.

The pickers and sinewy olives in this painting all strain upward towards the hope of spiritual salvation. But six months after he completed it, Vincent Van Gogh walked out into a wheat field and shot himself.